The family held its breath when he was declared missing in action on April 21, 1950. When months stretched into years and no news came, Pearce was presumed dead on Dec. 31, 1953.

The loss hit the family hard, including Frazier.

"I really didn't know him, but I felt like I knew him," the Hampton woman said.

But an official presumption of death was not enough for her to give up hope.

"I used to dream about the day that he would come home," she said. "His mother didn't really talk about him much, but my mother did, and people in the community did as well."

Frazier herself eventually entered the Army, partly due to the inspiration of her cousin's example. Her career spanned 22 years, and she was stationed at Fort Belvoir when she retired as a first sergeant. She moved to the Peninsula to attendHampton University.

While in the Army, she contacted the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office to find out more about what happened to her cousin. The office has worked with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command to negotiate with North Korea for access to crash sites, battlefields and prison camp cemeteries.

Eventually, investigators pieced together the rolling battle that led to Pearce's 1950 disappearance. His unit in the 25th Infantry Division was attacking entrenched Chinese troops in the Chorwon Valley and surrounding hills, and he was lost after a series of attacks and counter-attacks. As near as investigators could determine, he was never in enemy hands.

Pearce was a medic, and he was last seen tending wounded comrades, according to the account of his record on the Korean War Honor Roll of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

As it turned out, the U.S. had recovered Pearce's remains a couple of years after the battle, but could not identify him.

In 1952, the U.S. Graves Registration Service found military clothing and human remains near the area of the battle. But his remains were buried as "unknown" at the United Nations Military Cemetery in Tanggok, South Korea.

Two years later, the remains were exhumed and re-analyzed, but no identification was possible given the technology at the time. The remains were once again interred as "unknown" at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

More recently, analysts from the Defense Department's Central Identification Lab re-examined records for all unidentified remains in the vicinity of that battle. And scientists from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command used dental records and radiography to help identify Pearce's remains.

The Defense Department announced on Monday that Pearce had been identified.

A memorial service for Pearce is set for Saturday. No members of his immediate family are still living, but his memory will be honored by Frazier and four other loving cousins.

It will be a bittersweet ceremony for Frazier, who wanted to believe that her cousin had somehow managed to survive all these years. Perhaps he had amnesia, she thought, or maybe he was still imprisoned.

At least he has finally come home.

"This is something my family's been looking for," she said, "for a long time."